The Killer and the Slain

I, John Ozias Talbot, aged thirty-six years and three months, being
in my perfectly sane mind, wish to write down this statement.

I do so entirely and solely for my own benefit and profit--in fact,
for the quietening of my disturbed mind. It is most improbable
that anyone other than myself will read this document, but should
anything happen to me and I die without destroying this writing, I
wish the reader, whoever he or she may be, to realize fully that no
one could conceivably be of a more complete mental sanity and
honest matter-of-fact common sense than I am at this moment.

It is because I wish to show this self-evident fact to myself and,
if need be, to the whole world (after my death) that I write this
down. There will be many minute and apparently insignificant facts
and details in this record because CIRCUMSTANTIAL FACTS are in this
matter the thing! I have suffered during these preceding months
certain experiences so unbelievable that were I NOT sane, and were
many of the facts not so commonplace, my sanity might be doubted.
It is NOT to be doubted. I am as sane as any man in the United
Kingdom.

Because in the course of this narrative I confess to a crime this
document will be kept in the greatest possible secrecy. I have no
desire to suffer at the hand of the common hangman before I need.
That I do not myself FEEL it to be a crime matters nothing, I am
afraid, to the Law. One day, when the important elements in such
matters are taken into account rather than the unimportant, justice
will be better served. But that time is not yet.

I was born in the little seaside town of Seaborne in Glebeshire on
January 3rd, 1903. I am married and have one son aged ten. I
inherited my father's business of Antique and Picture Dealer. I am
the author of four books, a Guide to Glebeshire and three novels--
The Sandy Tree (1924), The Gridiron (1930) and The Gossip-monger
(1936). The last of these had some success. I was born in a
bedroom above the shop, which is in the High Street and has, from
its upper windows, a fine view of the sea and the now neglected and
tumbledown little harbour.

I was the only child of my parents and adored by them. Some have
said that they spoiled me. It may be so. I worshipped my mother
but had always a curious disaffection to my father. This was
partly, I can see now, physical. He was an obese and sweaty man
and would cover my face with wet slobbery kisses when I was small,
and this I very greatly disliked. My mother, on the other hand,
was slight and dapper in appearance, and the possessor of the most
beautiful little hands I have ever seen on any woman. Her voice
was soft and musical, marked with a slight Glebeshire accent. She
had something of the gipsy in her appearance, and liked to wear gay
colours. I remember especially a dress made of some foreign
material--silk of many brilliant shades--that I used to love, and I
would beg her to show it me as it hung in the cupboard in the
bedroom. My father, when they woke in the morning, would always go
downstairs to get breakfast ready (he worshipped my mother), and
then my mother would take me into her bed and I would lie in her
arms. Never, until I married, did I know such happiness.

My father was successful in his little business--successful, that
is to say, for those easier, more comfortable days--and we lived
very pleasantly. His great passion was for the buying of old and
apparently worthless pictures. He would clean them with the hope
that something by a Master might be discovered. He did, indeed,
make one or two discoveries--a Romney portrait and an Italian Pietà
by Piombo were two of his successes. But his main business was
with visitors and tourists. He visited all the local sales and
sometimes went quite far afield.